Your Right to Know

After 10 months without a hearing, a pair of Senate Democrats urged action on a bill that would
eliminate the 20-year statute of limitations for prosecuting rape or sexual assault.

The call yesterday comes two weeks after Ohio State University students representing a national
women’s-rights group dropped off 60,000 online signatures to Sen. John Eklund’s office urging
passage of a stalled bill that would block rapists from gaining parental rights.

But more meetings, changes and some convincing will be needed before either bill gets past the
Senate.

Sens. Capri Cafaro, D-Hubbard, and Nina Turner, D-Cleveland, want Ohio to become the latest
state to no longer put a time limit on when a person can be charged with rape. Supporters argue
that rape often goes unreported — sometimes for years, often forever.

“Reporting is almost an attack in and of itself,” said Carson Tompkins of Lakewood, who said she
was sexually assaulted at age 4. “It requires exams, invasive questions and recounting a traumatic
event over and over.”

She added: “It takes years sometimes to get to a place when you’re safe enough and healed enough
to be ready to confront that, and no survivor should be told they didn’t heal fast enough.”

Senate Bill 83 was introduced more than a year ago and
has the backing of Attorney General Mike DeWine. In December 2011, he asked
law-enforcement agencies to turn in old rape kits for testing. As a result, last summer a grand
jury in Cleveland indicted two men for rape just one day before the 20-year statute of limitations
expired.

“Survivors deserve justice no matter how long it takes,” said Katie Hanna, executive director of
the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence. Many rapists are serial offenders, she said, so pursuing
more prosecutions will “promote justice for victims and make our communities safer.”

“All of the voices in this debate deserve to be heard so we can have the best bill possible,”
Turner said. “But we cannot have that if we don’t have another hearing on this bill.”

Turner and Cafaro sent a letter two weeks ago to Eklund, R-Chardon, chairman of the Senate
Criminal Justice Committee, asking for another hearing. He invited them to meet with him.

“I think (the bill) promotes delay in reporting crimes, gathering evidence and a delay in
prosecutions — none of which is good for getting these people behind bars,” Eklund said. “Bringing
justice to victims and their families is what we’re all about. But eliminating statutes of
limitations doesn’t do that.”

Turner said rape victims don’t use statute of limitations to decide when to report the crime. “
That’s an asinine excuse to not allow this bill to have full hearings.”

Meanwhile, two Senate bills and a House bill blocking the parental rights of rapists also are in
Eklund’s committee. He wants sponsors to work out a single, agreed-on bill.

“I anticipate us taking some action on those topics, but I can’t tell you the specifics,” said
Senate President Keith Faber, R-Celina.